


Purr, Like So Many Cats

by lonerofthepack



Series: To Fall Next Upon Salem, and So Go On [3]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: BAMF!Newt, BAMF!Percival, Character Study, Gen, Injury Recovery, M/M, Perceptive!Newt, Pre-Relationship, Sparring, Theseus reads romance novels, idk folks, passing suit porn, the aurors ship it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21970447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack
Summary: And then—And then, he’d washed up in New York for the second time in less than a year. Had found himself left beach-strewn and blinking like a fool in a cavernous office drowning in paperwork, clutching a double-handful of the stuff and a cooing Niffler, dumbfounded.And all of a sudden, those heroines in the novels Theseus liked were a great deal more sympathetic, as his own life became abruptly far sillier.Sweeter. But much sillier.
Relationships: Original Percival Graves/Newt Scamander
Series: To Fall Next Upon Salem, and So Go On [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1340785
Comments: 21
Kudos: 178





	Purr, Like So Many Cats

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the annual Gramander fic, since school is insane and my brain is a bag of cats. It's in the same general vein as Tax Me for a Wizard, and is part of the Giles Corey universe. It's been beta'd by the brilliant tigersilver, and all mistakes are absolutely my own.

Newt had always gotten a chuckle out of Theseus’ love of florid romance novels. Big, tough Gryffindor Prefect, Mister-Auror-Himself, Pride of the MoM, nose-deep in a flowery novel. He’d blush, pink under copper like a mismatched swatch book, when he was teased about it. It made Newt’s hero-brother human again, something so often sorely needed. 

That pink-flush in turn reminded Newt of the boy Theseus had been once, in the earliest annals of memory. Before he'd disappeared off to someplace incredible and only came back at Christmas and summer hols, indefinably changed. It had been five years before Newt had caught up enough to even begin to understand. 

And Hogwarts—well, Hogwarts had been a very different place for him, and Theseus was gone again before he had his footing. No more safety to be found amongst red-and-gold.

(He hadn't had nearly so good a footing as he'd hoped, as it turned out.)

Nowadays, Theseus shared his favorite novels, the deeply ridiculous ones that he adored most, the ones that he loved so much that he’d cackle over them and read out particularly purple passages from, or send snippets, via international post or even scribbled in the old passnotes-journal they’d kept as children. (Now kept between them again while Newt wandered far and wide.) 

Without fail, Newt would laugh as well, long and deep, since all the very silliest of them described the heroes as _feline_. Leonine, cat-like, fluid and dark and sensuous, prowling and growling and purring.

They’d drunk themselves silly once, when Newt had caught up to his brother accidentally-on-purpose; that one mission when they’d found each other sloughing off mud and cursing the involvement of dragons in human war, when the Muggle guns had gone quiet and the only light was the soft gleam of lumos or the crackle of campfires. 

Bladdered on their entire shared rations of firewhiskey and no dinner, after Theseus had finished shouting himself hoarse, they had collapsed onto one another like they hadn’t since they were children. Whispered long into the night: which of the protagonists was most beleaguered, which of the love-interests most overwrought? Who they might have imagined kissing, who should have been hexed on sight? All the ways that the authors had likened their characters to the creatures they’d grown up with, tucked away in the idyllics of childhood.

It was a good memory, floating above a red sea of war-horrid, and they’d kept it, once the dragons had gone off to the reserves and the medals had been pinned to coat plackets, and Newt had fled the slow-death of an office job in favor of playing the bohemian. A thread of brotherly love, now that he ran faster and farther and more desperately than Theseus ever had, a sweet chime amidst a thousand differences: Theseus wrote him notes meant for nothing but solely to make him laugh, and he wrote back much the same, little stories about the inanities of a hundred different creatures who crossed his path.

Newt found himself giggling sometimes, dripping anti-mite potion into the Nundu’s ears or rescuing one of the Kneazles from the aquatic portion of the case, yet again. Found himself writing letters to his elder brother in his head, to be later transcribed: 

_‘Theseus, imagine one of your heroines falling desperately for someone wanting regular rescuing from the same fountain, simply because he doesn’t like the damp on his toes. He yowls endlessly, the moment he’s tired of chasing water bugs, but she’ll love him because he purrs like an engine at the first sign of a brisk scratch behind the ear.'_

_'Brother, imagine your hero, the most recent one, whose lover is strong and strapping beyond description; the lover snivels and whines at a bit of medication sloshing about, and spills the whole bottle while dragging him close to cuddle away the complaint. Imagine that character from your favorite, yes that one, proud as a griffin--imagine them mantled and brooding around a pig-skin ball, guarding it like an egg to hatch.'_

_'Find image enclosed. Imagine one of the ladies, hauty and mysterious as a manticore: rolling around luxuriously in the dust to relieve a persistent itch between the shoulder blades, arising to shake the dust from their skirts with brisk efficiency before sprawling down to sunbathe with immeasurable dignity.’_

Because of course, the feline sorts _were_ all of those powerful, mysterious things—it only took getting up in the night once and feeling stalked by a soft-footed shadow with eerie glowing eyes to convince anyone of that. And all the more when those eyes belonged to a seventy-stone nundu. 

But as _anyone_ who’d spent any time with one might tell you, cats are many more things than merely graceful and mysterious, and _mostly_ — 

Well, mostly cats are ridiculous, or they’re bloody asleep.

So it made him laugh, and Newt liked naming his creatures after the silly heroes of Theseus’s latest, greatest dime novelettes. Who needed a moody creature with a chiseled jaw stalking about brooding when they could share a giggle over a twenty-pound ‘hero’ armed only with a squeaky kitten’s mew? A grand and ridiculous name only added humor. 

And when a creature managed to live up to the silliness of purple prose? Well, that’s when Theseus got the rare results of the liberated German aerial camera from the top-shelf in the workshop, dry plates carefully developed to saunter with plumed tail aloft through the frame and then shrunk small for the owls’ comfort. 

And then— 

And then, he’d washed up in New York for the second time in less than a year. Had found himself left beach-strewn and blinking like a fool in a cavernous office drowning in paperwork, clutching a double-handful of the stuff and a cooing Niffler, dumbfounded. 

And all of a sudden, those heroines were a great deal more sympathetic, as his own life became abruptly far sillier. 

Sweeter. But much sillier.

It seemed a shame, he mused over mucking out enclosures, that no-one had yet written some thinly-veiled allusion to the Director of Magical Security in Theseus’s bodice-rippers. Like Lydia Lyhtgifts' auburn-maned Atticus Dubledam, or Dora Durnaias' fictional scion of the fabulously wealthy and powerful fictional Pixus family, Jet. Theseus could be reliably felled with laughter at the merest mention of Jet Pixus.

But imagine! How the swoop of his coat might be lovingly detailed, words like trailing fingers enjoying the plush of rich fabric? The deft gestures of wandless magic already practically required the willing suspension of disbelief, and the long-lean of his legs wrapped close by the finely stretched dragon leather tight round his calves was titillating enough to guarantee a most excellent first-run of any book devoting them the attention they deserved. If the novel-reading world wanted someone powerful and debonair to dream over from the safety of clapboard and paper, truly, they need look no further than the wide cuff of Mr. Graves’ stylish sleeves.

Imagine, as well, how Percival Graves might fall in love?

 _Well, that was enough of that_ , he thought sharply, stopping short with pitchfork in hand, when that thought brought a pang of something crampy and overwarm to his gut— 

It would make Theseus howl with laughter, he thought, days later, twiddling through a staff meeting. 

(“The first six months of them,” Graves had promised of the interminable meetings, “ _only_. And not if you have anything more important. Just enough to secure a record of attendance, for protocol.”

“What does it matter?” he'd asked, feeling as if the walls of bureaucracy he'd escaped from the Ministry were closing about him. 

And then been hammered flat by a staccato reply, even and pointed and matched with a level stare:

“So that I have a lengthy piece of paper to wave, the next time you find yourself in a foreign interrogation room with a pack of smuggled perytons in your case, Mr. Scamander.

“So that the MACUSA wards actually catch without my having to cast them directly, which--yes, _will_ disrupt your ability to be subtle in the field. 

“And so that you have some sense of who will respond to what, when you finally get around to laws committees. 

“That's _why_ , Mister Scamander.”)

To find _that_ book in his favorite shop, Theseus probably wouldn't even pause for breath between cackles. The ribbing he’d offer his old friend in such an instance would be immediate, probably a floo, and mercilessly fierce. Perhaps he might even make enough fuss that the man relaxed enough to indulge in a laugh himself. 

Merlin knew, Graves needed to ease some laughter into the angles of his face.

Aloof and wary—he made for a striking silhouette, and who could blame him for the distance. But he was entirely too lovely and entirely too kind to be lost to the sort of cold, anger-fear isolation that had—Newt was told, in Theseus' _other_ letters, the proper ones that made his hands shake and his gut twist with anxiety and guilt—taken so many of the men Newt had fought with. 

That he saw every-day himself, trying to consume so many of his own charges, struggling with behaviors and patterns that had helped them survive their interactions with humans and now left them unable to be truly free.

Imagine, the smiles Percival Graves might possibly give, if only he found reason to laugh a bit more.

It had been another one of those troublesome requirements of the retainership MACUSA had offered—Tina and Weiss and DelGato had been talking around _something_ for days now. Some requirement or regulation ensuring that operatives were sufficiently trained in the dueling arts to protect themselves during investigations. He didn’t entirely follow what they were after—some sort of report or evaluation of dueling practice for civilians. It sounded entirely tedious, and rather… not his wheelhouse, so to speak.

Probably paperwork; MACUSA produced several times its reasonable share of paperwork and seemed to think that his priority was to read every scrap of it that arrived on his doorstep. Though damned if he could remember any that sounded like that in the mess of the workshop.

Though, Dougal had become very invested in keeping the Occamies’ nest well-insulated, and any available paper was liable to find its way to the basket, important document or no. It wasn’t entirely impossible that his case illicitly contained whatever report it was they were after without him ever knowing.

In any case, it was all very official and procedural sounding, so Newt had merely nodded along and demurred as politely as he knew how, ready to take the slightest excuse he could find to slip back into his case, to do any of the thousand more important things that needed doing. He was only in New York another day or so, anyhow.

Until the Director had emerged from his office, and demanded to know what the hold-up was.

Emerged, in shirt-sleeves, vest, and a scowl—no fine jacket to serve as armor, the dark of it serving as sartorial camouflage. Just the sleek glory of him in a fine lawn shirt and steel-coloured waistcoat, two steps closer to rumpled than Newt might ever have thought to imagine.

No, not rumpled, rumpled was mussed, was messy. Just...informal. Slightly informal--the removal of a single exterior article of... A shade more comfortable, in professional company. 

Unexpectedly, wonderfully, so.

The tone of command had sparked a fluster in the bullpen that lasted for an entire minute as everyone tried to explain everything all at once. 

Which was around when Newt, shaking himself out of a gentle daze born of the desire to see that charcoal waistcoat abandoned to show of the pattern of the Director’s suspenders and sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms, had realized that what they _wanted_ was an evaluation. Here, and now, and against a number of different aurors, specifically _his_ dueling skills—

“Oh, no, no, that's, let's not—” 

—and that if _he_ wanted to be permitted on raids—to help the creatures on-site and immediately, rather than wait at headquarters for the aurors to bring the ones they could subdue—then regulations demanded this requirement satisfied.

That was an entirely different, um, animal.

“Damn it,” Graves had huffed, and frowned at the entire room until quiet fell. He turned the same stern mein on Newt, who should probably have cowed under it but instead couldn't quite bite back a dopey grin. He could feel it, silly and probably entirely inappropriate.

“Scamander, join me in the gymnasium. You have ten minutes; you may leave your case and your coat in my office.” 

Being put, forcibly, on the floor should not have been the most exciting thing to have happened to him all day. Nothing that invited an inevitable cacophony of aches and pains in a day’s time was something to welcome, not with a herd of peryton and two adolescent chamrosh testing the boundaries of their enclosures.

He did his best to repress another stupid smile off his face, blinking up at the shadowed ceiling; because absolutely it had been, and he’d relish every sore muscle.

Percival Graves was a thing of beauty, great and terrible beauty, in a dueling ring, and Newt was a bit surprised that he’d managed to do much _beyond_ stutter and gape like a fool in the face of him.

Graves came near and leaned into his view. “Alright, Scamander?” 

“Oh, oh, yes.”

And fetched Newt up off the floor of the training hall like what Newt’s mother might call a ‘proper gentleman’; with the offer of a hand— 

(warm-hot on his, callus scraping on callus, strong enough to grip without squeezing painfully)

—a sturdy pull— 

(his balance was coming back, the injured leg getting stronger even if he was still compensating for the knee—he had to remember the vervain and augury-tear salve, it would help)

—and a lovely smile, small and slow-blooming— 

(just...it didn't ever seem to ease, or it hadn't over the course of a month, how lovely that smile was, what it did to Newt's internal balance)

—with his muscles moving fluidly under a soft shirt and stark vest to help Newt up.

(Something in Newt would have purred with the spark of appreciation, if he'd had the physical mechanism with which to do so.)

He’d already paid Newt the complement of removing his lovely black jacket again before they’d even begun, and now he wielded congratulations warmly, as Newt regained his feet and Graves offered him back his wand. Hardly effusive—the Director never was, only ever genuine and sincere in both praise and criticism—but plenty to make Newt duck and blush and stammer.

Correction—being helped off the floor should not have been the most exciting thing to have happened all day.

But. 

"Oh, no, but _your—_ that was, it was incredible—"

He’d put Newt on the floor in the first place with a frankly _brilliant_ show of power and his ridiculous degree of _control_ over it, tempered even further with a sly sort of humor that had sent Newt tumbling across the abruptly-padded floor like a rag doll, after a duel that had been every bit as feline and dramatic as a tom-cat playing fear-of-god with a spry mouse.

Newt earned now a _proper smile_ somehow, even with his babbling; the impact of the expression entirely catastrophic to his equilibrium. 

By the time he'd sorted gangling limbs into something like human-normal (Graves had caught him by the arm mid-stumble, which hadn't exactly helped, because Newt is, was, in all ways, always, a mess) a tide of Aurors had swept ‘round to pound congratulations and approval into Newt's shoulders, and beg a lesson from their Director.

Newt hadn’t gotten a look at the stop watch yet, but the aurors’ faces were enough to indicate it had an impressive time on it, and there was the pleasant burn of exertion in his muscles and magic. 

His gaze slid back to his former opponent, jostled just out of reach, who was shifting carefully through some minor post-spar stretches, taking questions from his aurors on form while he did.

 _Someone should write that novel_ , he thought, tracing the twist of Graves’ back with his eyes. Even with the lingering injuries from Grindelwald, the Director was intrinsically graceful in his movements. They'd make a mint, if they managed to capture even a tenth of what made the Director so impressive, and the feline similes so favored by the genre were...particularly apt.

It was a shame that what sprang to Newt’s mind when he considered Percival Graves right now, as a tender of a great many cats and other wild creatures, was a very different tendency of felines than their famed grace and dignity and ferocity:

Percival Graves hid pain _compulsively_ , worse than any Kneazle or wildcat Newt had ever harboured.

When Newt had met him, the real him, still hollow-cheeked and grumpy with the immediate after-effects of lengthy confinement, Graves had needed a cane to take even a few steps across the room. It hadn’t taken long—a few minutes, at most—to work out that the injury must have been very nearly career-ending. That stubbornness and some carefully channeled sort of fury were what gave him the strength to cling to it, hold fast to his work with all the ferocity of a guardian lion holding their post.

Now, only a month later, the Director didn’t reach for the cane unless there was no other way to move, and he refused to limp at all in front of his aurors while running drills and sorting out the bureaucratic demands of a MACUSA retainment unless it was a choice between limping and falling.

No, he channeled all the pain it must cost him up into his shoulders, and it only showed in the fine lines of his face, the gradual graying of his skin under harsh institutional lights and the tremor of his hands. He ended the days he spent stalking through the Woolworth building showing only the completely involuntary signs of discomfort: pale and moving gingerly--and days like today, with wand-work and training that dragged for hours, he gradually moved less and less, and used probably too much magic to make up for it. 

The twisting movement he employed now was shallow, and achingly slow. Careful, like Graves was afraid of what the stretch might do to him. 

It was a weakness in dueling, to be sure. Now, fatigued from multiple duels, someone who could string two or three too-fast Apparations in a row and draw out a few heavier spells without succumbing to them; faced with that sort of challenge, the Director would struggle to keep his perfect aim. If they went another round now, Newt would find him tired, slowing—

\--and ultimately more dangerous. All that power with imperfect control was a frightening thought, when Newt had creatures waiting for him. 

Not an ideal condition to send the Director home in, with his face ashy and his hands cold from the pain of today’s exertions. It wasn’t yet past the lunch hour, but a handful more hours sitting behind a desk would only stiffen sore muscles, leave him slower and more exhausted still. 

Probably, it wouldn’t matter. Graves was an extraordinary duelist—there weren’t many wizards who could put in multiple duels in an average day, much less keep aurors on their toes. Newt didn’t often run into anyone who was fast enough with a spell to catch him between Apparations, much less controlled enough to do it gently. So unless Grindelwald returned or there was another deeply Dark-aligned wizard waiting in the bowels of the city, it was a moot point; the Director remained the most dangerous creature to wander New York’s streets tonight.

But…he was going to need his cane tomorrow from the exertions of today, even if he wouldn't use it. And his hands were shaking, too, a faint tremble that would worsen. He shook them out casually, but curled his fingers against the texture of his trousers several times, a tell of deeper discomfort and possibly numbness. He was courting a channeling injury, pushing so much wandless, wordless magic through joints and tissues that had been physically injured and magically healed, putting strain on the weak mechanics that were still repairing themselves under the layer of magic. It would be better to use his wand, but wandless seemed a hard habit to break, even for the pain it cost.

Rest, of course, was the best medicine for those manner of traumas, but Percival Graves was no more likely to rest than a hippogryph was to give ground to a rude stranger; the mere suggestion of it had blatantly offended the man the last time Newt had suggested such a thing.

"Scamander," said Senior Auror Weiss, sidling up. "Well done today, that was some impressive foot-work. Mrs. Colon wanted me to remind you that he's free for your verbal report after lunch."

"I. He's not on half-days any, um, any longer?" A laughable thought, from what he'd seen. It would be comical, the lengths the Director went to, to fight that edict. 

Except for how it wasn't comical, at all.

"He's meant to be," Weiss grumbled. "If you can manage it, you're a better magician than all the Aurors and the President combined."

"Hmm," Newt hummed, noncommittal, and darted over another glance—Graves winced minutely at some twinge of straining muscle, curling and uncurling his fingers again.

Decided, Newt shrugged, nodded. "Hm, well. Worrying just means you, ah, suffer twice. Mind how you go, Weiss."

"Best of luck, Scamander," the auror muttered, fading back into the jumble of bodies and voices.

“Director, um, if you have a moment, to discuss the practicalities of extending the Unplottable portions of Lake Superior, I, um, I had a few ideas? Perhaps,” he raised an eyebrow, tilted his chin--smiled, tentative, when the Director cocked his own head. “Over lunch?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
